Trend Data You Can Use

Identifying and analyzing trends is a critical part of the environmental scanning described in a previusly post. For links to trend data you can use in your strategic planning efforts, go to our website: http://www.createthefuture.com/trend_of_the_week_2005.htm. Here's a good example of what's available: Gary Hubbell, author of Forces of Change: The Coming Challenges in Hospital Philanthropy, has analyzed the prospective peak giving years by generational cohorts. The peak giving years are ages 55-75:

Silent Generation - Birth Years: 1925-1942. Years of Peak Giving 1980 - 2017

Boom Generation - Birth Years: 1943-1960. Years of Peak Giving: 1998-2035

Generation X- Birth Years: 1961-1981. Years of Peak Giving: 2016-2056

Millennial Generation - Birth Years: 1982-2003(?).Years of Peak Giving: 2037-2078

His conclusions which will be useful for planning by nonprofits in general include the following:
· As we enter the 2010 decade, the last cohort of the silent generation will be reaching the end of their peak giving years.
· Early Boomer cohorts have already entered their peak which will continue for the next twenty years.
· Generation X donors will just begin to enter their peak giving in the middle of the next decade, continuing to the middle of this century.
· At least 30 years from now, Millennials will enter their prime giving years.
· Futurists anticipate longer life spans for each successive generation so peak giving years may represent spans that start later in life and/or last longer than what is known today.